[HN Gopher] Choosing Insecurity (2017)
___________________________________________________________________
Choosing Insecurity (2017)
Author : yamrzou
Score : 19 points
Date : 2022-06-13 08:15 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (knowingless.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (knowingless.com)
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Fascinating. I'm not sure I agree on all or many points here... I
| wonder if the author is illustrating the extent of their own
| insecurities.
|
| For example, one might have all the confidence in the world, but
| prefer to pursue a monogamous relationship for practical reasons.
|
| I might be fairly content with or without a monogamous
| relationship, but I know that certain experiences would be
| exceedingly unlikely without one, and they're things I want to
| experience. For example, raising kids in a healthy environment.
| In a monogamous relationship I can provide a stable and
| functional environment for my kids to grow up in. I don't care
| all that much about who my partner has sex with, but I do care
| that our relationship meets their needs such that they don't feel
| compelled to have sex with other people, so we can raise our kids
| under conditions that keep everyone happy. It's not really about
| who they have sex with so much as creating a life where that
| isn't really a concern in the first place.
|
| If I was concerned or insecure about sex, well, I wouldn't have
| had kids I think. They aren't conducive to having more sex at
| all, nor necessarily all that great for ensuring someone is
| monogamous. Divorce rates are evidence enough to illustrate that.
|
| So am I insecure about something here? Not passing on my genes?
| Not having stability? I suppose you could frame it that way, but
| at some point you need to choose one thing over another, and it
| wouldn't be useful or informative to call that insecurity. I feel
| secure in my choice, for what it's worth.
| frickinLasers wrote:
| "And so how can we blame anybody for avoiding "fixing
| themselves," even if it goes wrong?"
|
| Choosing polyamory is not "fixing oneself." There is no benefit
| to it, unless the only thing you get out of sex is physical
| pleasure.
| swatcoder wrote:
| This is precisely as reductionist as the author's claim about
| monogamy.
|
| There are a thousand reasons that someone may be drawn to
| either lifestyle, a thousand more reasons why someone might
| find themselves shifting between them, and still a thousand
| more reasons why someone might be situationalist and not
| identify with any prevailing lifestyle for themselves at all.
|
| Depthful discussions about different ways of living can be
| interesting and enlightening, but making reductionist claims
| about the "other" doesn't deliver on that.
| akomtu wrote:
| "Those who avoid casinos and don't buy lottery tickets do so
| because of insecurity" or even better "not letting your friend
| gamble with your money is a sign of insecurity." Edit: in both
| cases, casino and sex, it's the dopamine spikes that keep people
| addicted, so in essense the author suggests to embrace addiction,
| and even tries to paint it as a virtue.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| "Avoiding venereal disease and unwanted pregnancies is a sign
| of insecurity."
| planetsprite wrote:
| Is washing your hands insecurity over being dirty? Is taking
| notes insecurity over not having perfect memory? Is eating
| healthy insecurity over your body not being able to handle
| functioning well on its own?
|
| I like applying Chesterton's fence as a rebuke to most calls to
| shed some traditional more of society. In considering this I'm
| not sure most proponents of polygamy understand why monogamy
| exists as a societal tenet in the first place.
| rentfree-media wrote:
| It seems to me that both the militant believers and the militant
| non-believers always have a "they" to point to as the reason for
| their militancy.
|
| I suppose everyone forgot about the individualist nature of
| protestantism.
| barrysteve wrote:
| What do you mean 'they' in this context?
|
| The initial comparison she makes to 'monogamous people' is not
| really explored. She ascribes some of her own judgements to
| monogamy at the end, but it's not really based on anything that
| monogamous people do or say. It's mostly her own reasoning
| about herself, generalities and an anecdote about her friend in
| real life.
| everdrive wrote:
| >I think monogamous people are monogamous because they are
| insecure.
|
| But how does the author differentiate between "insecurity" and
| "protecting myself from an outcome I do not want." Just because a
| potential outcome makes me anxious does not inherently mean it's
| just an "insecurity" that I should "grow out of."
|
| [edit]
|
| This is clearly a failure of imagination on the author's part.
| I'm pretty introverted, and when I was younger I sort of
| implicitly suspected that no one "really" liked going to
| concerts. Somehow going to concerts had become a popular thing,
| and everyone must have been pretending to enjoy them just to fit
| in.
|
| Clearly, this idea was as incorrect as it was naive. I had
| suffered a failure of imagination, and had incorrectly assumed
| that my native perspective was far more common than it is.
|
| I think we've all suffered these sorts of failures at one point
| or another.
| throwamon wrote:
| I'm monogamous because people are fucking exhausting to me but
| I still have some weak emotional needs.
|
| Hell, if "halfgamous" were a thing, that's what I'd be.
| titanomachy wrote:
| "Halfgamous" made me laugh :D
|
| Also, go easy on yourself. Emotional needs are a sign of
| humanity, not weakness.
| barrysteve wrote:
| The answer to authority fear and monogamy concerns is faith or
| religion. On further reading on this blog, aella was raised
| fundamentalist evangelist and it didn't take, by the time she was
| 19 it fell off her like a cloak that never fit.
|
| It's a tiny bit of a shame, glad she's doing well but it is clear
| stepping into a more traditional church that has survived the
| test of time (and isn't fundamentalist) like catholic, orthodox
| or episcopal might provide her with the seed of a faith that can
| last.
|
| She knows what she's doing though, the subtitle of her blog is
| "In pursuit of an internally consistent annihilation", so be her
| wants. A long way from Mary.
| titanomachy wrote:
| I'm not sure I follow. If I come to you saying "I'm not sure if
| monogamy is the right thing to do", your answer is "it's the
| right way because the Bible says so"? That's a pretty unhelpful
| answer unless I already happen to believe that the Bible is
| true.
|
| Also, while mainstream Christians are monogamous, a lot of
| devout followers of Abrahamic religions over the centuries were
| decidedly not: e.g. certain Mormons and Muslims.
| groby_b wrote:
| Completely unfounded premise, large "me me me" middle chunk, and
| an unwarranted conclusion.
|
| There are plenty of mono people who choose mono _and_ who deal
| with jealousy. The entire premise is starting off on the wrong
| foot. (There 's also a good chunk of mono people who observe
| and/or try poly and say "dear God, I never want that scheduling
| nightmare")
|
| It is certainly consistent with a large subgroup within poly that
| likes to send the message that polyamory will make you somehow a
| more evolved human being. But there, too, is plenty of evidence
| to the contrary. (Major sanctimonious preachers of the poly choir
| have turned out to be major shitheels in recent years)
|
| So maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't conflate choice of partners
| with character, ethical behavior, or other traits.
|
| Just a thought.
| titanomachy wrote:
| It's kind of buried, but near the end TFA says 'I should
| clarify that my definition of monogamy is "when you place a
| restriction or expectation on your partner's engagement in
| sexual activity."'
|
| So if you and your partner have both freely decided that you
| don't want to date other people because the scheduling is too
| annoying, you're not really her target.
|
| I've heard some of my friends say things like "if I ever found
| out my partner slept with someone else, I'd be furious and
| might never forgive them." Maybe that's who she has in mind.
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| > They have made the decision that going to the effort of getting
| rid of jealousy - of dealing with the pain of their partner
| spending the night somewhere else - is not worth the benefits
| they might gain from nonmonogamy.
|
| This is about the equivalent of saying that people who decide to
| eat 3 meals a day are insecure about dealing with the negative
| emotions of being on a continual starvation diet.
|
| Maybe the author should just try owning their position like "yea
| I want to sleep around and feel good about myself" instead of
| having to tear others down.
| throwamon wrote:
| Maybe a more apt analogy would be saying people with a
| sedentary lifestyle are insecure about having to go hunt and
| fight sabertooths whenever they're hungry and their chickens
| have been eaten by a fox.
| titanomachy wrote:
| If you're 200 lbs overweight, then maybe you _should_ be on a
| starvation diet all the time and the only reason you 're not is
| fear of discomfort.
|
| If you're a healthy weight, then eating all the calories needed
| to give you good energy levels seems pretty optimal.
| ZhangSWEFAANG wrote:
| This is why I love hackernews. I hated the article, but I
| couldn't phrase why. Comments like this articulate what I'm
| thinking.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| I think excess time to overthink stuff is producing such
| thoughts.
|
| At the end of the day the only fundamental truth is that nobody
| wants to be present when 2 people are getting romantic/sexual.
| Also nobody wants to picture somebody they are having sex with
| somebody else before.
|
| The above is something which is true for basically everybody
| except for rare fetishes.
|
| Once you recognize the fundamental truth above it becomes
| perfectly clear that what people call polyamory is essentially 2
| people having a pseudo-romantic relationship in which they don't
| live together and don't see each other every day.
|
| And when they are not seeing each other they are having pseudo-
| romantic relationship with other people and everybody in this
| chain of pseudo-romantic relationships thinks of themselves as
| being the only one who is enjoying exclusivity but doesn't bother
| investigating if that's really the case. Of course they don't
| confess sleeping around either.
|
| Such things have existed forever. It used to be called the
| "talking stage" when everything is still fair game but somehow
| you assume the other person is not taking advantage of the fair
| game clause which exists during the "talking stage".
|
| Some social norms exist in other countries where it goes beyond
| the talking stage. Eg. France. But if you ask around they don't
| define themselves as poly.
| yamrzou wrote:
| The author explains the monogamy choice by jealousy and
| insecurity. But a different explanation is being _territorial_
| [1]:
|
| <<Jealousy is a negative trait, territoriality is a positive
| trait. Jealousy stems from fear and insecurity. The focus of
| jealousy is actually yourself. Territoriality is an instinctive
| act to provide and protect the one(s) you love. Jealousy focuses
| on you, territoriality focuses on your partner. You are being
| territorial because you care for their well being. Jealousy
| breeds resentment, anxiety and distrust, territoriality breeds a
| sense of safety, security and trust.>>
|
| [1] https://www.relationshiptalk.net/are-you-a-jealous-or-
| territ...
| titanomachy wrote:
| The two concepts cover different behaviors. If your partner is
| getting attention from random strangers, and you think "my
| partner doesn't want this attention, I'll put my arm around
| them to make it clear that they're with someone": you're being
| territorial. If your partner says "I like and trust this person
| and I'd like to sleep with them" and you say "absolutely not",
| I'd call that jealousy.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-13 23:02 UTC)